Inaudible Nonsense

A number of years ago, I read Aaron Betsky’s Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, a examination of LGBT cultural geography in the built environment and how it is manifest through leading gay and lesbian architects. It’s a fantastic read.

Now comes Deaf Space, and an architecture and planning for Deaf interaction and accommodations. Call me fascinated. From the Gallaudet article on this:

Hansel Bauman said it makes sense that this class is offered through the Department of ASL and Deaf Studies. “Architecture is one of the key ways a culture manifests itself in the physical world,” he explained. “Deaf culture centers around the language. The language has all the elements of architecture-the spatial kinesthetic of sign language, the desire of deaf people for the visual access that open space affords-lends itself to express the deaf way of being.”

So what say you? Where does this lead? I look forward to someone exploring this idea in book and essay form in the future. Understanding the importance of how identity structures our environment and vice versa is a developing area of geography, cultural studies and architecture history. So to me, this feels like a logical step forward to understanding Deafness.